


Moderation in All Things

by dracoqueen22



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Canon, Established Relationship, M/M, Pre-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-10 02:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18929689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: Pharma and Tarn are a delicate balance of intelligence and brawn, economic inequality, and political power. Somehow, they manage to make it work.





	Moderation in All Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kurxo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kurxo/gifts).



Tarn was on fire.   
  
Not his lover, of course, but his namesake city-state.   
  
Pharma came home, and the first thing he grabbed once the door locked shut behind him, was a bottle of his favorite engex. He pulled one of his wine glasses from the cabinet -- a gift from Tarn several years back -- and filled it past an appropriate level. He savored the scent of it, ventilated deeply, trying to ease the tension from his hydraulics.   
  
Should he turn on the vidscreen? No, of course not. Why subject himself to the negativity and the darkness? He knew what had happened. He didn’t need to watch the endless cycle of theories and reporting and blabbering to be informed. He didn’t want to give the news any more attention than it deserved.   
  
Pharma took a small sip and ventured instead to the balcony, stepping into a cool nightcycle, a long nightcycle. It’s been some time since Cybertron was caught by a celestial body with sufficient gravity. Their planet had been drifting aimlessly through space, and time was gauged not by the rising and setting of a solar body, but by the universal chronometer at the Prime’s palace in Iacon.   
  
He was not concerned. He had no reason to be concerned. Tarn was on the other side of the planet from Crystal City.   
  
The revolution, once small and only backed by a few raucous voices, had grown in leaps and bounds, until a protest became a riot became a city-state in flames. It was the only story on every channel, it was the worry on everyone’s lips. It haunted the airwaves, and buzzed in the atmosphere. It had been the talk of the medcenter as Pharma left for home, calling a private transport rather than flying, as was his usual preference.   
  
“Pharma?”   
  
“On the balcony,” he called, though probably unnecessarily. There were few places Pharma could be, despite the size of their suite.   
  
Tarn’s field touched him first, not concerned, but acknowledging. Affectionate warmth hummed beneath, and comfortable delight shone at the fringes.   
  
“Thinking of taking a flight?”   
  
Pharma looked over his shoulder, past the rise of his kibble. “On a night like tonight?” He scoffed. “Some twitchy fool might take me for an enemy and shoot me down.”   
  
“I take it you’ve seen the news then.” Tarn stepped out with him, all sleek and dangerous angles, his frame a construct of violence and intimidation, though Cybertron hadn’t faced a serious threat in millennia.   
  
Pharma shifted his weight, watching over the rim of his glass as Tarn removed his battlemask and tucked it into a storage compartment. He’d not come from battle, but Tarn never left home without wearing it.   
  
“Of course. It’s impossible to miss. It’s the talk of the city, the state, the planet.” Pharma flicked his fingers. “Civilians are frightened, soldiers are uneasy, and there are all sorts of theories being bandied about.”   
  
There were even whispers of war.   
  
“Yes, I’ve heard some of them, each more ridiculous than the last.” Tarn huffed, the loud vent of a mech who considered lesser beings beneath him. “War, of course, being the prevailing assumption. A civil war, no less.”   
  
“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” Pharma said as he sipped on his Tarnian Sunrise, perhaps one of the last bottles for some time, since last he saw, the distillery was aflame. “The Prime will react swiftly and with supreme prejudice.”   
  
“Of course he will,” Tarn said with a snort, rising up beside Pharma like a great, dangerous mech, a leashed force of aggression, his treads hanging over his shoulders in deference to his skill. “The Prime and the Senate both know only violence as a response to violence.”   
  
Pharma wrinkled his nose. “You sound as though you disapprove.”   
  
Tarn braced his hands on the thick rail of their balcony. He leaned forward, staring out over the twinkling lights of Crystal City in night-cycle. “Peace through tyranny,” he rumbled. “Perhaps it’s the only way.”   
  
“Now you sound like the revolutionaries.” Pharma sniffed and took another sip, the cool burn of the Sunrise settling warm and comforting in his tank. “You’ve been poking around the darknet again, haven’t you?”   
  
“There is much to be learned in the places one shouldn’t go,” Tarn said, which was his way of confirming Pharma’s suspicions.   
  
Pharma chuffed and tucked his free hand under his other arm, holding his glass near his lips. “There’s also risk. Such as getting caught and severely reprimanded, stripped of your rank, or worse, arrested.”   
  
“For a bit of knowledge? I doubt it. At worst, they’ll dock my pay for a cycle.” Tarn flipped a hand in dismissal. “I know how to cover my tracks, sweetspark. And how to… restructure the conversation in my favor.”   
  
“Ah, yes. Your silver tongue.” Pharma moved up beside his lover, surveying the array of glittering lights below. “It’s always served you well, not just in the political scene.”   
  
“I seduced you, didn’t I?” Tarn asked with a rumble of a laugh that paled in comparison to his usual humor. Shadows lingered behind his words, and his optics.   
  
He was troubled by the riots. Pharma paid attention to his lover. He’d caught Tarn late into the evening, the computer monitor reflected on his face, and the battlemask he wore before deployment, sitting on the desk beside his dominant hand. Tarn scrolled through texts upon texts, greedily consuming political manifests as though he needed them to survive.   
  
Pharma had tried reading them once, but like his medical journals to Tarn, Pharma found little interest in the manifests. They were boring, and better served as materials to soothe him to recharge on an insomnia-infested night.   
  
Whatever Tarn found in those texts, however, had lit a fire inside his spark. A small glowing ember which was currently being fanned by the societal unrest on the other side of the planet.   
  
“You did.” Pharma replied, quiet and contemplative. He sipped long at the Tarnian Sunrise, savoring the sweetness on his glossa. “You were charming, if I recall, though rumor called you a terrible brute.”   
  
Tarn snorted. “Rumors are always only that: rumor. The battlefield makes monsters of its survivors, and sometimes, a brute is who survives.” He gave Pharma a sly look, and the glitter of triumph in his optics sent waves of want through Pharma’s sensornet. “Besides, I don’t see you complaining when I turn that fierceness on you.”   
  
Pharma flicked his glossa over his lips. “That was an observation, not a complaint.” He slid to Tarn’s other side, free hand gliding out to caress a dangling tread. “I’ve put you together more times than I count, Tarn. I know exactly what you are.”   
  
The shiver in Tarn’s field was palpable, and Pharma delighted in being able to provoke Tarn. His military lover liked to carry himself with an air of elegance and poise, but could be coaxed into embracing his lesser nature, given the right incentive.   
  
“I’ve not been broken that much,” Tarn drawled, with an air of offense, and well, he was right. Pharma had put his hands all over Tarn’s frame, not necessarily to repair him, but often to improve him.   
  
Or enjoy him.   
  
“True. There’s a reason you have command of your own unit.” It took self-control for Pharma to master his expression.   
  
He was not fond of Tarn’s unit, elite though they might be, and all with their own specialties. Tarn was gentlemechly, and polite, and knew how to offer respect. His team, however, were the very definition of brutes. All save for Kaon who Pharma preferred above all the others.   
  
Pride fluttered in Tarn’s field. His tank treads wriggled, and Pharma buried a smile behind his wine glass. He knew better than to call Tarn ‘cute’ though the twitch of his treads would always be adorable to Pharma.   
  
“Do you think you’ll be called to quell the mob?” Pharma asked.   
  
“Mmm. Doubtful.” Tarn shifted his weight, and his armor plates flexed. “They do not consider the rebellion beyond the might of the local Enforcers. For now.”   
  
Pharma raised his orbital ridges. “You disagree?”  
  
“I think Prime and his cronies have a history of underestimating their opponents. It’s why our last war against the Flexerons dragged on as it did. They are painfully arrogant.”   
  
Pharma stifled a snort. As if Tarn had room to talk. He was as arrogant as the mighty who ruled from their seat in Iacon, though Tarn’s arrogance came from a different source. Though to be fair, Tarn wasn’t wrong.   
  
That particular war had gone for much longer than it should have, and many Cybertronian sparks were unnecessarily snuffed in an altercation which could have been solved in many other ways. First being that Cybertron should have never invaded Flexeron space to start.   
  
His disgust with that war aside, Tarn still hadn’t abided by contempt of the military or their might. He’d been quick to defend them, his unit, and the soldiers he fought alongside. After all, it wasn’t the fault of the soldiers.   
  
It was the fault of those who held the power and gave the orders to die.   
  
Still.   
  
“They are peasants and common mechs. Factory workers even,” Pharma said thoughtfully, recalling the rust-stricken and shambling masses caught by the cameras. “I think any rational mech would underestimate them.”   
  
“Perhaps.” Tarn tilted his head, his gaze raking over Pharma from top to bottom, as though looking him over for the first time. “But it’s not their opponents they underestimate, it’s the message they’re trying to send.”  
  
Pharma twisted his jaw, the taste of the Tarnian Sunrise souring on his glossa. “What? That the only way to get your way is to destroy things until someone bends their knee?”   
  
“No. Destruction is the approach they’re taking to be heard by the Prime. Their other message is being sent on different channels.” Tarn’s grip tightened on the railing, his fingers creaking as he rolled his palm around it. “There is a rising tide of discontent, Pharma. It’s sweeping more and more under its banner, faster than the Prime can contest.”   
  
“Your point?”   
  
A quiet sigh whistled from Tarn’s vents. “Prime’s answer to it is to try and physically eradicate the insurrection, but it’s not a solution. It’s a symptom.”   
  
“What’s the alternative? Let a mob run through the city, take it over for their own?” Pharma scoffed and rolled the elegant flute of the glass between his fingertips. “If leadership shows weakness now, then every minor upheaval will think mindless destruction will get them what they want. A show of force right now is the best solution.”   
  
Tarn leaned back against the railing, elbows hooked against it. “Spoken like a true civilian.”   
  
Irritation flashed hot and quick in Pharma’s field. “Just because I don’t serve in a military capacity doesn’t mean I’m a fool. I understand the necessity of violence.”   
  
“Necessity,” Tarn echoed, and there was derision in his tone, enough to make Pharma’s armor flicker with agitation. “Sweeping in like a thunderous beast will not quash these voices. It will only inflame them.”  
  
Pharma’s fingers tightened around the wine glass. "And what do you suggest, in your infinitely more wise military capacity? A peaceful parlay? I don't think these upstarts have any interest in a calm and rational debate."  
  
"Only because they know any sort of peaceful discussion with the Prime will be non-productive.” Tarn rolled his shoulders in a shrug, but there was nothing nonchalant about it. “Prime has no interest in listening to the concerns of the lower class. He just wants them in their place, where they belong."   
  
A shiver of unease crept up Pharma’s spinal strut. “Be careful, love. Talk like that and other mechs will start to think you sympathize with the rioters,” he cautioned. Though there was a fair chance Tarn did, indeed, sympathize with them.   
  
Once upon a time, he’d been such a mech, sparked to a lower class, to a menial toil in his functioning, until his spark was identified to hold outlier abilities, and he caught the optics of a forward-thinking Senator.   
  
Tarn moved closer, the heat of him blocking the ambient chill in the air, his field wrapping around Pharma like a comforting blanket. "Is sympathizing with the poor and forgotten a crime? If so, perhaps there is something rotten in the state of Cybertron."   
  
Pharma drained his glass and set it on the balcony rail. "Cybertron isn't perfect. But burning it all down isn't the solution either."   
  
"There you go again, putting words in my mouth." Tarn tilted a knuckle under Pharma's chin, lifting his gaze. His thumb swept over Pharma's lip. "I said nothing of the sort."   
  
"You preach senseless violence at me. What else am I to assume?" Pharma cocked an orbital ridge, vents quickening, as they always did, when Tarn showed him a glimpse of the mind behind the war machine. It was the reason he'd caught Pharma's optic in the first place.   
  
Tarn's scarred lips curved into a smile. "All violence is senseless, but it can have purpose."   
  
"That doesn't make any sense."   
  
"Because you've never had any wants.” The pad of Tarn’s thumb scrubbed his lower lip again, pressure a touch more firm this time. “ You were sparked into a life of ease, and so you can't identify with those who weren't. It's not your fault."   
  
Pharma folded himself into the heat Tarn's massive frame exuded. "Desperate times lead to desperate actions. I understand that much. Even if I've never been in a position of desperation myself."   
  
Tarn's free arm wrapped around him, fingers sliding up to squeeze at his wing mounts. "You're telling me that you approve of the Prime taking military action against his own people?"   
  
"If they didn't want to be met with their own deaths, they shouldn't have rioted. They're a danger to innocent mechs who want no part of them. The Prime has to do what he must to protect everyone," Pharma replied.   
  
Contrary to Tarn's belief, it wasn't so much that Pharma was absolutely loyal to the Prime and the Senate. Rather, he deplored unnecessary chaos and violence, and the quicker Prime could put a stop to the violence, the better chance more lives could be saved.   
  
If the revolutionaries understood they would not achieve their goals by becoming a senseless mob, maybe more productive solutions could be found. Pharma was not unsympathetic to their cause. He disapproved of their means.   
  
"There's always another way," Pharma added.   
  
"Until there is none," Tarn rumbled and cupped the back of Pharma's neck, the weight of his hand warm and comforting, proving that he wasn't angry, despite their obvious political schism. "Prime will regain control with fear and aggression, and then wonder why it will rise back up against him tenfold."   
  
Pharma hummed an slipped an arm around Tarn's chassis, tracing the solid line of his spinal strut, between the two massive hydraulics that supported his tank-alt. "Am I going to lose you to the revolution?"   
  
"Don't be daft."   
  
Pharma smiled and rested his other hand on Tarn's hip, tracing the empty power cell docks -- Tarn was always unarmed while at home. "I think it was a fair question. I can feel the anger in your field, and hear your conviction."   
  
"Since when is anything I say carefree?" Tarn snorted and flexed, sweeping Pharma up into his arms with little effort. "We are both right about the same thing. Right now, no change will be made with a handful of rabble causing a ruckus in Tarn. But things are changing."   
  
Pharma went lax in Tarn's arms, excitement humming through his lines as he was carried back into their loft, the balcony doors beeping as they shut and locked. Oh, dear. He'd left the wine glass on the rail.   
  
"For the better, you think?" Pharma asked.   
  
"Well, that depends on the Prime."   
  
Pharma scoffed and dragged a finger through a seam in Tarn's chassis. "For the worst then. You know how stubborn that whole lot can be. It's why Ratchet keeps disappearing in the Dead End. He's a bleeding spark."   
  
"You are, too. In your own way."   
  
Lights dimmed as Tarn carried him through the loft, toward their room and the massive berth they shared.   
  
I'm a medic," Pharma corrected. "It's in my nature. Primus gave me a spark such that I care for my fellow Cybertronians and not particularly the creds in their bank account." He sniffed theatrically. "The Senate could learn a thing or two about empathy, if you ask me."   
  
Tarn rumbled a laugh. "I notice you still prefer to be paid."   
  
"Of course. I'm not an idiot," Pharma retorted, indignant. "There's sympathetic and then there's foolish. What good am I as a medic I if I go hungry or am forced to roam the streets because I've no place to live? It's simple economics."   
  
Pharma hit the berth with a little bounce. He wouldn't say Tarn had thrown him onto it, but he'd definitely tumbled into the mattress. He took no offense, especially when he was immediately blanketed by the warm mass of his partner, Tarn crawling over him like a predator caging his prey.   
  
"Ever the pragmatic one, you are," Tarn purred, his optics glinting in the lowlight cast through the large bay windows. "Though when you chased after me, that was impulse, wasn't it?"   
  
"One of the only impulsive decisions I've ever made, and still one of my best," Pharma hummed, sliding his arms around Tarn's neck and tugging him down, brushing their lips together. "Come now. Enough political discussion. Let's bend our focus to something we can both agree on."   
  
Tarn's lips grazed his cheek, the ammunition and laserfire scent of him sending a thrill through Pharma's sensornet. "Such as how enticing you are, my little jet?"   
  
"I'm far from little, but yes." Pharma rolled his optics. Just because Tarn was a military mech and therefore heavily armored and larger than the average citizen in Crystal City, did not mean Pharma was tiny.   
  
Tarn chuckled and the sound of it rolled through Pharma's field like a burst of static charge. "An appropriate topic indeed."   
  
And then they said nothing more, because Tarn's mouth fell over Pharma's, and words were lost in a cascade of kisses, with Pharma tasting the scars on Tarn's lips. He pushed all thoughts of potential war far from his mind.   
  
There was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.   
  


***

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback, as always, is welcome, appreciated, and encouraged.


End file.
